FEMA Staffers Put on Leave Just Days After Signing a Letter Denouncing FEMA Leadership

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Just days after signing an open letter protesting their leadership, FEMA staffers have swiftly been put on leave — a new report reveals.

According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen FEMA employees were put on leave after they put their names to a letter that criticized agency leadership — including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting FEMA administrator David Richardson.

ABC reports that the impacted staffers were informed the decision to put them on leave “is not a disciplinary action and is not intended to be punitive.”

In the dissent letter — first reported by the Post — the employees warned that the inexperience of current leadership could lead to a Katrina-level disaster. They said Noem and Richardson lack the qualifications to lead the agency, which has hampered FEMA’s ability to manage emergencies.

The letter also criticized a FEMA policy that requires expenses above $100,000 to be personally approved by Noem. According to The New York Times, that policy contributed to a delay in response time to a FEMA call center in the wake of the deadly Texas floods — as the agency was unable to renew the contracts of hundreds of contractors at the call center in a timely fashion.

In all, more than 180 employees signed the letter — though only three dozen used their full names, out of fear of retribution. More than a third of those who signed their full name have already been punished.

In a statement to the Post, a FEMA spokesperson blasted the dissenters.

“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. … Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems,” the spokesperson said. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable.”

Jeremy Edwards, a former press secretary for FEMA who signed the letter, told the Post, “The fact that 180 people signed on to the letter, with a supermajority of them still working in the building, and dozens of those people wanted to attach their real names, signifies the severity of the problem. They are that scared of us being so inadequately unprepared. It speaks a lot to the situation right now.”

Roughly 140 employees at the EPA were put on leave last month after signing a similar letter criticizing their leadership.

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